Mark Taylor

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Mark Taylor is one of only a handful of performers to successfully integrate the notoriously difficult French Horn in the worlds of jazz and improvised music. Taylor's sound has been described as "rapturous" and "golden" (Coda Magazine); "as fluid and limpid as (the) flute, and as gnarly as (the) alto." (JazzTimes). His innovative style has won him recognition by such legendary artists as Max Roach, who said, "Mark Taylor is a virtuoso instrumentalist...there is no one dealing with the french horn or the music the way he is." A native of Chattanooga, TN, Mark has performed and recorded with an array of modern giants including: Max Roach, McCoy Tyner, Abdullah Ibrahim, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lester Bowie, and as a featured soloist with Henry Threadgill's Very Very Circus with whom he toured the United States, Europe and in Asia.

As leader of his own groups Mark has performed at jazz festivals in Tampere, Finland, Ljubljana and Maribor, Slovenia, at a number of clubs in Germany, Austria, Canada and New York City, including Birdland, the Zinc Bar and the Knitting Factory, and recorded and released four CDs as a leader or co-leader, QuietLand on Mapleshade Records, Circle Squared on his own taymons music label, At What Age on ARC Records and Live At The Freight on New Artists Records. Mark has composed for theatre and dance, placed a song in the Dollface Productions independent feature film "The Girl ", completed the scores for the sci-fi short, “John Blue 7”, documentaries, "A String of Pearls" and “9/11: Fear In Silence” and created the score and sound design for “Zero Down O.A.C.”, a dark comedy about used car salesmen in rural Alberta. Mark has also completed several transcriptions of music associated with seminal jazz bandleader James Reese Europe’s 369th “Hellfighters” military band for the Brooklyn Repertory Ensemble. Mark enjoys using SoundIron instruments because, as he says, "I'm certainly not going to go out and bang on some garbage dumpsters in a stairwell. You can get arrested doing stuff like that!" More...